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If recreational drugs were legalised...

M

mr_mojo

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Joined
Apr 17, 2007
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... and big pharma got into the game; do you rekon that there would be some massive breakthroughs?

It seems that relatively little effort has been put into recreational substances R&D, with only a handful of people putting any serious effort into it, and many of them stopping with the 'war on drugs' starting.

Or is it the case that the body only reacts to comparatively few molecules and we've got most of them already?
 
Yes if big pharma got in on the act there would be vast potential for new recreational drugs, better than anything that now exists and quite possibly they might even come up with new compounds that don't even fit into any of the existing classes (i.e. a pure euphoriant with very little other effects)

The big question is whether they would want to. Remember that strictly speaking there are no laws that would stop a pharmaceutical company from developing and marketing drugs specifically for recreational use at the moment. All the drug laws around the world prohibit specific drugs, or analogues of specified drugs. There is no law anywhere that says drugs intended for recreational use are illegal per se.

So the question is why hasn't it happened already? Big pharma have discussed coming up with improved alternatives for alcohol and the idea was rejected because of the potential for litigation; anything fun is going to have potential for people to become addicted even if it doesn't cause overdoses or other negative side effects. Instead they have just focused on medicinal drugs and left recreationals to the illegal market, where they are "litigation-proof" so to speak.

And note there is nothing stopping pharmaceutical companies making medicines for other purposes that just happen to also have highly desirable recreational effects (e.g. oxycodone); that way the product is widely available so they get their sales, a large proportion of whats sold does end up resold on the black market anyway, but they can wash their hands of all the people "misusing" their products and say they had no idea it would end up getting sold on the street (despite the huge rise in legitimate oxycontin sales coinciding with the oxycontin "epidemic" on the black market making it somewhat unbelievable that the pharma company didn't realise the product was being abused!)
 
That's a big reason why they AREN'T allowed to pursue recreational drugs. No one is going to give them money to invent new ways for people to get high without any medicinal value. They don't want us getting high, they want us to use drugs for medicinal reasons, giving us a means to have fun is seriously NOT in any of their priorities.
 
Imo, if there was a way to form some type of Hybrid drug that could be comparible to say.. a low dose of shrooms (.8-1.2g)ish or a low dose of acid. From personal experience of low dose on each, I could easily see myself being more productive, more social, happier, more creative and so forth without any "impairing" effects that phsycadellics can cause. honestly who among us hasn't gone about day to day activity while on something of the sort and noticing how much more pleasent it all seems, and from personal experience it just feels like i'm operating at 101%. you see ads on TV all the time for the legal focus drugs which people claim they would never work a day without after having taking them etc etc, and that's completely acceptable. OBVIOUSLY that has some similarities to a variety of uppers both illegal and RX which would produce similar effects to these focus drugs, but whatever it is that makes these seem "safe" in the eyes of the law makes them acceptable to use daily. So in theory, if a something like I'm talking about was developed, I could see the possibility of seeing something on the legal market
 
^ That sort of thing is possible with a partial 5-HT2A agonist.
There are plenty of partial 5-HT2A agonists already, it's just that all of them are still too effective. No-one's really focused on making them like that, only on making them super potent instead.

Yes there are people focusing on designing recreational compounds, but not many compared to the vast majority. The legal climate around them isn't exactly conductive toward doing so.

Yes if Big Pharma got involved there would be some seriously kickass drugs around.
No doubt there's been HEAPS evaluated by them already, that were aborted due to excessive abuse potential. Funny to think, at the exact same time, when one of those scientists would have seen it's effects (binding affinities, rats going crazy and redosing repeatedly etc) and frowned because of it, then shelved it (and not in the rectal sense ;) hahaha), a huge smile would have gone across my face, and thoughts of eating it dawning, heh. Haha, subjective reality we live in ;) .
 
^ When I was feeding anorectics to rats at uni, I certainly took note of the ones that they repeatedly dosed on (it was in their water supply) - all the best appetite supressants (read: stimulants) produced real neck-ender, ready to rumble rats!

'Locomotor stimulants' (or any other clinical sounding name) simply doesn't give the full picture - does the word 'locomotor' give the image of rats obsessively grooming (y'know, tarting yourself up whern you've had a dose of your stimulant of choice:D)?
 
the short answer is money..
Big pharma can make more money from the theraputic rather than recreational side of things, how much is LSD worth in annual sales? it is a pittance in comparison to lipitor, pfizers anti-cholesterol drug with annual sales of
$12.9 billion and an annual growth of about 5%, and that is just one drug.
The global market (just for prescription drugs) is over $600bn annually. All illicit drugs? a best estimate by the UNDCP is somewhat less than $350bn.
they did the math.

plus when a supposedly theraputic drug goes wrong the drug comapanies can justify it by saying that they were treating a medical condition and can appease the regulators, Vioxx being a classic example.

the boundary is becoming blurred Modafinil is one example of a drug which the vast majorty of sales are for lifestyle reasons rather than medical ones. Big pharma is also very interested in nootropics as that will be a big market in years to come.

If big pharma wanted a massive blockbuster recreational drug they already have run across a few highly euphoric tricyclics which were unsuitable because of abuse potential, the data is locked in company archives.
Any of the big pharma companies could , if they chose, make and screen every substance that Shulgin and Nichols have ever made or even dreamed of in a matter of months.
 
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fastandbulbous said:
^ When I was feeding anorectics to rats at uni, I certainly took note of the ones that they repeatedly dosed on (it was in their water supply) - all the best appetite supressants (read: stimulants) produced real neck-ender, ready to rumble rats!

'Locomotor stimulants' (or any other clinical sounding name) simply doesn't give the full picture - does the word 'locomotor' give the image of rats obsessively grooming (y'know, tarting yourself up whern you've had a dose of your stimulant of choice:D)?
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first, thanks for that enlightening imagery as it brings new light to the "dry" studies i have read of which must number in the thousands as i have never done clinical hands-on lab work of that nature

second, i just want to give a general thanks to you for i definitely have learned a good deal reading your posts as i am sure many others have

third, if you have any compounds that fall into the aforementioned posts thrust of "super-stim anorectics" that are NOT known or analogues of known sched subs certainly i would be interested in learning such structures =D (via PM)

anyway...thanks again F&B for all you contribute
 
fastandbulbous said:
^ When I was feeding anorectics to rats at uni, I certainly took note of the ones that they repeatedly dosed on (it was in their water supply) - all the best appetite supressants (read: stimulants) produced real neck-ender, ready to rumble rats!

'Locomotor stimulants' (or any other clinical sounding name) simply doesn't give the full picture - does the word 'locomotor' give the image of rats obsessively grooming (y'know, tarting yourself up whern you've had a dose of your stimulant of choice:D)?
Click to expand...
What kind of degree were you working towards? I'm interested in this sort of thing, but I'm not quite sure what program would involve testing compounds like this.
 
How do you ask a rat 'how did the trip FEEL'? Wouldn't everything have to reach human clinical trials just to find the qualitative actions? I mean, I know all drugs have to do that, but for mind-altering stuff, isn't it a lot more hassle. I'm interested that other esters of ritalin are much stronger but those damned isomers. If it's SO much stronger then maybe the intermediate acid can be purchaced?
 
MattPsy said:
That sort of thing is possible with a partial 5-HT2A agonist.
There are plenty of partial 5-HT2A agonists already, it's just that all of them are still too effective. No-one's really focused on making them like that, only on making them super potent instead.
Click to expand...

Sumatriptan is just such a drug, its used to prevent migraines. I wonder if at higher doses it can be psychedelic?
 
mulberryman said:
Sumatriptan is just such a drug, its used to prevent migraines. I wonder if at higher doses it can be psychedelic?
Click to expand...

I thought that the tripans various were specific 5HT 1 something agonists?
 
All anti-depressants with recreational value have been taken off the market - certainly in some countries the laws are more draconian than others where, say, in the UK you can only get Bupropion if you want to stop smoking. Amineptine was a great example. AMT was used as an anti-depressant in Soviet Russia for a while before it was banned.
The irony here is that anti-depressants are essentially useless for depression unless they are recreational. Sure they are great for tackling other disorders related to 5HT instability such as unstable mood, anxiety, even pain etc. But you don't have to keep maxing out the dose of a recreational drug for it to be anti-depressant; herein lies the problem - because people are always chasing that first rush, by upping the dose and consequently upping tolerance. Almost every drug is either addictive or dependance producing, yet the docs are happy to keep you on a lifetime habit of an SNRI but they bark at you if you want Benzos or Opiates - even though they are much less toxic, especially if maintaining the same dose. It is a matter of learning to appreciate the feeling you are accustomed to; it becomes forgotton, but it is still there. Even after six years of Benzo use at the relatively same dose, I don't feel the need to escalate - they work fine for me, and to be able to get them legitimately would mean no more horrid withdrawals when you lose a dealer or run skint.
 
^^ Im pretty sure sumatriptan is a 5ht1d agonist. Some of the other triptans also bind to 5ht1b
 
While I do love getting high and the prospect of new and exciting drugs, hell I am a junkie, I think that pharmaceutical companies need to focus elsewhere rather than on recreational drugs. There are so many diseases and ailments in the world that have very little research done on them, it seems almost a crime to take chemists away from those causes and into something as hedonistic as making us feel a new high. Sure pharmaceutical companies are only in it for the money, but their medications do help people and that's the purpose of those companies in my opinion, to help the sick, making billions and getting high from the lovely opiates and benzodiazepines they churn out is only a nice side-affect.
 
Is making people better what we really want to do, for the health of all of us? (Interesting thought, that one. Perhaps better off in Philosophy ;) !)
 
ziddy said:
What kind of degree were you working towards? I'm interested in this sort of thing, but I'm not quite sure what program would involve testing compounds like this.
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It was for my M.Sc. (part of a paper one of my lecturers was involved in concerning SAR of anorectic & appetite stimulating drugs)
 
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